System. Security. cryptography. cryptographicexception: keyset does not exist or access is denied.

If you're getting one of the following exception messages in your application:

Message:Keyset does not exist

Stacktrace:

At system. Security. cryptography. cryptographicexception. throwcryptogaphicexception (int32 hr)
At system. Security. cryptography. safeprovhandle. _ freecsp (intptr pprovctx)
At system. Security. cryptography. safeprovhandle. releasehandle ()
At system. runtime. interopservices. safehandle. internalfinalize ()
At system. runtime. interopservices. safehandle. Dispose (Boolean disposing)
At system. runtime. interopservices. safehandle. Finalize ()

 

Message:Access is denied.

Stacktrace:

At system. Security. cryptography. cryptographicexception. throwcryptogaphicexception (int32 hr)
At system. Security. cryptography. utils. _ createcsp (cspparameters Param, Boolean randomkeycontainer, safeprovhandle & hprov)
At system. Security. cryptography. utils. createprovhandle (cspparameters parameters, Boolean randomkeycontainer)
At system. Security. cryptography. rsacryptoserviceprovider. importparameters (rsaparameters parameters)
At system. Security. cryptography. RSA. fromxmlstring (string xmlstring)

Solution:

The application might be trying to write to the following folder path: C: \ Documents ents and Settings \ All Users \ Application Data \ Microsoft \ crypto \ RSA \ machinekeys

If your application is using impersonation or using the IUSR_machinename user, then configure the machinekeys folder sercurities and give the user read & execute, list folder contents, read, write. if that doesn't work, try giving the Everyone user the same permissions.